TECH GIANT BRINGS JOBS BOOM TO GEELONG

A Melbourne-born tech giant with offices in some of the world’s biggest cities will open its Asia Pacific operation in Geelong.

Geelong is set for a tech jobs boom with an international giant setting up shop in the regional city, promising to create 500 new jobs.

LiveTiles, established by Melburnians, will add the new Geelong hub to its collection of offices in New York, London and Los Angeles, creating 500 new tech jobs in the regional city.

“For them to be able to come home to set up their Asia Pacific headquarters, so close to where they learnt their skills and began this process of building and becoming such a successful business gives us great pride,” Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Thursday.

LiveTiles, which grew at 300 per cent last year, allows users to create workplace software using simple drag and drop functionality and is one of the most important partners to Microsoft globally.

The company said the recruitment process has started and it hopes most of the jobs, which are all new positions, will come from the Geelong region.

“Our growth continues at a high rate and we have people in 14 different countries but we are both proud Victorians and coming back here is always something we wanted to do,” LiveTiles co-founder and CEO Karl Redenbach said.

“The quality of people and graduates in Victoria are the best in the world and we want to see Geelong as a technology hub and leader, not just in Australia, but for the world.”

The company is partnering with Deakin and Monash universities and said they are leading the way in many areas, including artificial intelligence.

LiveTiles works with some of the worlds largest companies and governments, including PepsiCo and the US Department of Defence, and the Geelong hub will provide tech support to thousands of customers, it said.